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Saturday, 5 March 2016

crocheting a cosy blanket

Just as I finished the Attic 24 ripple blanket (pattern here, and my post here), I decided to do something about the jealousy I felt when I read Lucy of Attic 24 talking about meeting up with others and crocheting in a cafe, and set up a Craft and Coffee/Stitch and Bitch/Knit and Natter in my home town. We meet fortnightly at Cafe Bon Bon in Largs, and it's rather lovely.

Many thanks to Cafe Bon Bon in Largs for this picture. That's me in the corner with the green hair.

But I'd finished my blanket, so what could I occupy my fingers with?When I was taking pictures having finished the ripple blanket, I spread it out on my son's bed for this image:

True confessions from blogland now, that blanket was never going to stay on that bed... but, it did make me realise that my son has outgrown his Ben 10 fleece and could do with a blanket of his own. Hoorah for new projects.I consulted with the boy about blankets. I checked out various patterns and showed him them, finally deciding on the Attic 24 cosy blanket pattern. He may have said 'whatever'. We then chose a load of colours, including oddments left over from other projects and new stuff from the pound shop (they have some fabulous colours, and it's all acrylic so no-one's allergic, until the cat's slept on it anyway).We chose 15 colours to start off with. I've used Lucy(from Attic 24, not that I'm obsessed or anything)'s technique of wrapping the yarn around pegs to help with colour selection. Some of these were remnants from other projects, and as I've gone along they've ran out.I think I like that. Initially I was just going to let them run out and not replace them, but I've made the blanket a bit wider than it should have been (and who doesn't love a wide blanket, so no big deal), so I've decided to get some new colours too.To decide on the order the colours should go in I take these pegs and roll some gaming dice to choose the next one... I then shoogle the order a little bit if I don't like the look of it. I go through all the colours before spending some quality time with the yarn pegs and a D20 again. This will hopefully avoid the preponderance of certain colours in certain areas that there was with my ripple blanket.These are the colours I've got now: As you can see, I've run out of the bright greens and replaced those with a pale green, and I've run out of the greys and replaced them with a warmer grey. It does mean there are less colours, and I miss that beautiful dark grey so I might get one of those if I come across one.I've just started watching Outlander and I'm loving the mini capes that Claire is wearing in it, so I'm tempted to make myself one of those in dark grey. Although how would you wear such a thing with modern dress?Anyhow, here's the blanket in progress.I'm using my size 4 bamboo hook that I got for Christmas (it's fine, but I won't get bamboo hooks again because they chip too easily, and then they're a nightmare).

You can easily see where I've run out of wool in this picture. The bridge pattern becomes a row of blobs, and the train track of the simple treble/double crochet stitch with the light green just stops. I'm arguing that this is character.I like how the colours work together, and happily the boy is too. Of course, this may mean that I need to create blankets for the girls too...I'm wondering about making one of those flower blankets, but I don't want loads of ends everywhere.Alternatively something with a gradual colour change might be nice. Not sure how to achieve that over a whole blanket.Meanwhile I'm wondering what to do with the fleece blankets. I'm thinking they might make nice dresses, but perhaps I should just donate them for those poor folks stuck in Calais?Perhaps I should just get on with making this one!I love how it looks when it's all bundled up.